For several years now, I have kept a personal running spreadsheet during the draft process. The goal for me was to learn about the players, gathering information that I have tweaked along the way as I’m sure I will continue to do in the future. I will share a visual and some takeaways from the data points I create each year, simply called interest and athletic scores, with explanations to follow.
As Dave Bryan and Alex Kozora discuss regularly, the Steelers have a type of player they look for, and what the scores attempt to achieve is seeing who checks many of those boxes or vice versa. You will notice many of the inspirations for these scores come from their studies of draft trends over the years for Pittsburgh, and have fared well in who Pittsburgh has ultimately drafted.
While there is no perfect way to predict what selections the Steelers will make in the 2024 draft at the end of the month, I feel great about what the data points measure and, of course, would love to hear feedback as I’m always looking to improve the points system. Also, there is only so much time in the day and additional things I’d like to measure, so I focus on the crucial and/or practical choices.
Now, for more explanation of how the scores come together. The biggest point I want to make is that this is not a big board or round projection view. Rather, I am trying to pinpoint names the Steelers may select regardless of when they are drafted. After I get a healthy pool of names that I hear about or research, I begin the scoring.
Interest Score: Here, I configured a points system for the following important factors. College performance, body type, experience, age, position, competition level, pro-day attendance, pre-draft meeting(s), and Senior/Shrine Bowl invitations/participation.
This matches up nicely with the Athletic Score: simply 11 combine metrics excluding wingspan and whether or not they were within a threshold in each metric of any player drafted at their position by the Steelers since 2013.
Clear as mud? Here are the tight ends (TE) that were combine invites:
NOTE: If you don’t see a name please ask, I have many more non-combine players compiled but excluded them for a cleaner chart.
Here we see much less interest from Pittsburgh in tight ends overall, compared to other positions, expectedly.
The highest athletic score at TE is AJ Barner of Michigan (9.3), tying for 27th in the entire 2024 draft class. Highly attended Pro Day, including HC Mike Tomlin and GM Omar Kahn, but a slew of talent at greater positions of need is extremely important to acknowledge. Solid interest scores otherwise, including age (21), experience, body type, 2023 performance, Senior Bowl participation, and an informal combine meeting. Largely inline experience last season, with slot snaps as well, particularly in 2022. Ten athletic score in his full workout, with 9” hands missing Pittsburgh’s historical thresholds. Day three projection.
After a substantial drop-off, just one player in the seven tier of athletic scores. Georgia’s Brock Bowers is second in interest score at the position (7.3). Highly attended Pro Day (asterisk with their slew of talent), with age (21) and 2023 performance his best interest marks. No meetings, body type, and experience were lower in that box checking. Athletically, only measured in, meeting the arm length and hand size thresholds, but height (6031) and weight (243) are less than Pittsburgh’s tendencies. Inline, substantial slot snaps, and even wide-out alignment on his college resume. Likely a top-ten pick.
Other combine participants that deserve discussion each had informal combine meetings: Brevyn Spann-Ford of Minnesota (6.4 interest, perfect 11 athletic score), Penn State’s Theo Johnson (6.2 interest, perfect 11 athletic score), Jaheim Bell of Florida State (6.0 interest score, six athletic), and Kansas State’s Ben Sinnott (4.8 interest, seven athletic).
Another combine invite with a perfect athletic score is Tip Reiman of Illinois (5.4 interest score). No meetings for non-combine invites, with Oklahoma’s Austin Stogner the only perfect 11 athletic score in that group (4.9 interest score).
Pittsburgh’s interest and needs are obviously greater at other positions. Late and particularly undrafted candidates are more likely (if at all) in a weak TE class overall and a full position room for the Steelers, in my opinion. One thing’s for sure: I can’t wait to see how it pans out.
